We talked to Eyeball Glass, formerly Katz Glass, about his experiences in the worlds of academic glassblowing and functional cannabis glass art. Eyeball Glass became interested in glassblowing after watching a lampworker who worked out of an RV in San Diego. Eyeball Glass was fascinated by the process of shaping molten glass, so he did some research and found a lampworking hotshop near his home. Hotshop lampworking is a very different process from torch blowing as it relies on the use of a large furnace as the heat source, and lampworkers are typically shaping huge globs of soft glass with graphite hand tools and rollers. Eyeball Glass' parents were supportive of his interest and bought him a full-day lesson at the hotshop for his 17th birthday where he got his first real experience in glassworking.
Eyeball Glass' parents could not afford to continue paying for lessons, so Eyeball Glass sought out and acquired an internship at the hotshop and began learning the craft. At the time that hotshop was home to notable blowers including Mike Shelbo and Chris Jeffries, and these experienced blowers were instrumental in setting Eyeball Glass on the path to a lifelong career in glassblowing. Eyeball Glass credits Mike Shelbo as an early and important menntor to him, giving Eyeball Glass lessons, answering his questions, and eventually insisting that Eyeball Glass purchase copies of Bandhu Dunham's glassblowing manuals, "Contemporary Lampworking: A Practical Guide to Shaping Glass in the Flame," a series of three hardcover manuals which are universally acclaimed by glassblowers around the world, and which would prove to be a valuable resource for Eyeball Glass for many years to come.
After gaining the fundamental knowledge that he needed, Eyeball Glass applied for a scholarship at the Corning Museum of Glass and received the scholarship, studying flameworking under famous American goblet maker Emilio Santini. While he was attending classes at Corning, Eyeball Glass had an opportunity to watch a blower do a demonstration making functional prosthetic glass eyes. Eyeball Glass was fascinated by the process and end result, so he began making glass eyes as often as he could, a practice which would later lead him to the name that he currently uses for his solo work, changing it to Eyeball Glass from his previous name Katz Glass.
After Corning, Eyeball Glass wasn't finished learning about glass in the academic realm. He attended classes at Salem Community College in New Jersey, a school famous for its scientific glassblowing program which was started by world class paperweight artist Paul Stankard. Eyeball Glass continued taking as many classes as he could, especially in the early years and when he was transitioning from hotshop lampworking to flameworking, at one point even studying under Katherine Gray, the host of the Netflix series "Blown Away." He recommends that other prospective glassblowers try to take as many classes as they can regardless of skill level or experience, because you can never really know what you don't know.
Eyeball Glass' personal glassblowing style is marked by a lot of sculptural work, and Eyeball Glass says that those are definitely his favorite techniques to utilize. He has done some amazing artistic pieces using glass magnifiers and projectors in the past, and you can see some of those artistic concept pieces at his website katzglass.com. As his name suggests, his signature pieces have realistic eyeballs incorporated into them in different ways; attached to the sides of rigs, as terp pearls or nails or pendants or whatever else he can come up with. Eyeball Glass previously worked under the name Katz Glass, so you can check out some of his older work at the Katz Glass Instagram page (@katzglass). His current works are being posted on the Eyeball Glass Instagram page (@eyeballglass).
